Oprah Ready to Turn to African American Viewers to Save the OWN Network

Executives think they may have found a way to salvage Oprah Winfrey's struggling network...

...by catering more to an African-American audience. That may help ratings, but it would mean a dramatic shift, and one that could put the channel at odds with Winfrey's own brand.

The Hollywood Reporter- According to OWN president Erik Logan and Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav, the silver lining in an otherwise bleak performance record for the network since its launch last January is that it's performing particularly well among its African-Americans audience members—especially with a reality show called Sweetie Pies that premiered in October.

“Anytime you have a program that pops like Sweetie Pies did, you start looking at what drove it,” Logan tells Adweek. “And we saw that the African-American audience really had a connection with that show. . . . We’re going to look at ways to nurture and grow that.”

OWN has an average prime-time viewership of around 216,000 people, but Sweetie Pies enjoys an average audience of around 418,000, making it the highest rated show on the network by far. According to [OWN President] Erik Logan, OWN executives will be taking the success of Sweetie Pies in that market into consideration when making future programming decisions, as well as trying to pitch OWN’s success with African Americans to new advertisers.

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